Tennant Confirmed as the RSC’s Richard II

David Tennant will again be involved in a nationwide celebration of one of our countries icons when he returns to the RSC in the title role of Gregory Doran’s production of Shakespeare’s Richard II!

Announcing its 2013 Winter Productions for his first full season in the position of Artistic Director Doran spoke to BBC Coventry and Warwickshire about his delight in finding the ideal role for David since his award-winning portrayal of Hamlet five years ago.

It’s a real challenge for David; in a way more of a challenge than Hamlet even though Hamlet is regarded as the Everest for actor. Richard II is a great lyrical tragedy and he has got to touch different parts of himself to get there so I think it’s not just an automatic, easy one to do. I’m really looking forward to working with him on that.

The Winter Productions are the first to be announced in a busy five year period for Shakespeare fans.

Firstly, in 2014 the Company will celebrate Shakespeare’s 450th birthday followed in 2016 by the quatercentenary of his death.

Doran’s ambitious plan is to treat both as one giant celebration of Shakespeare’s complete life; from birth to grave, over an arc of three years culminating in a major nationwide event in 2016.

This includes mounting productions of Shakespeare’s entire canon including plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona which has not been performed by the RSC on the main stage in 45 years.

With the main stage occupied The Swan, the more intimate secondary stage, will be occupied by the plays that inspired Shakespeare and the works of his contemporary’s such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson.

For Doran, it’s an intimidating but exciting time to be involved with the RSC:

It’s like every time you do a Shakespeare at Stratford, you’re aware of being part of a continuum. You’re aware that we’ve been doing Shakespeare in Stratford on that footprint for 130 years plus. So it’s intimidating sometimes to be a part of that continuum but also very inspiring.

Everyone has a favourite Doctor and mine - just for his honesty, his fairness and his ability to not notice the Master's awful, awful disguises/anagrams (Sir Gilles Estram!?!) - has to be the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. The stories didn’t serve him as well as his acting served those stories.